


take it, and drink it in

by surana



Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Gen, some weird magic bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-06 02:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15876921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surana/pseuds/surana
Summary: The forest here holds many secrets. They were not meant for your eyes, but all the same: they were.





	take it, and drink it in

**Author's Note:**

> what happens when your d&d campaign members encourage you to post your backstory fiction to ao3?
> 
> this. this happens. if you read this and you're not part of b&b: i hope you enjoy! in theory i will add better tags as i post more, for organisation's sake.
> 
> if you are part of b&b: haha suckers you can never escape the weight of your sins

you have come by yourself, but you are not alone. all around you, the air shifts in patterns that never quite seem to touch you, the clear gap an acknowledgement of your presence here. this is not your home in the sense that you were born and raised here, but it is now. it has become your home over the span of years spent and friends found—family, by now. home comes with its fair share of people who do not share your new family's fondness for you, your own handful of enemies and, in greater numbers, those who just do not care for you.

these people care for you.

this forest seems to care for no-one.

you know that is not quite true, though, don't you? there is someone, surely, else that person has been lying. and while obfuscation is always on the table, lying is far less so. not outright.

so you press forward, where the trees are not thicker, exactly, but the air hangs denser across your shoulders and you feel the press of it in your lungs far more heavily than when you entered. you are careful to avoid making too much noise. few twigs snap under your feet, and you take your time maneuvering around fallen branches and rustling greenery like it is imperative. like your life depends on it.

it might. someone else's might. you have not been able to shake the worry in a long, long while. (that is rather your life story, though, isn't it?)

the forest never falls silent, but the volume wavers as you traverse the path, something old and magic you are unfamiliar with. you can feel it guiding you. not direct, like a pull in your chest, something hooking itself in your ribs and dragging you forward. it is a hand on your back, an arm at your waist, fingers on your shoulder nudging you in the right directions. the sensation is a step away from familiar. you cannot place the memory, or find the answer to why. you just keep moving forward.

you're meant to be good at that, right?

the clearing comes upon you, you think, rather than the other way around. it is so sudden that you almost do not stop, despite the three concentric rings of stone spanning the worn forest floor. you know enough to know things so deliberately placed are not meant to be disturbed by those who don't have a clue what they are doing.

you don't have a clue what you are doing.

then again, maybe you know more than you think. it is a feeling that bubbles in your head, coating the inside of your skull with a vibration that borders not on pain, but debilitating intensity. it threatens to overtake you. you clench your jaw and grit your teeth and bear it. you find a measure of success in this tactic. the feeling only lessens, leaving you with the fizz in the crevices of your brain, but you find your focus again.

such tenacity, some people would say. you think they are ridiculous, though, don't you? this is just what you have to do to keep going. no, you have seen tenacious. this is not it.

you are not it.

you don't remember bringing your hand to your head, but it falls to your side now, and as your fingers pass over your eyes something appears in the clearing before you. the vision is over in a matter of seconds. you feel frozen in place, though not from any magic. only your own shock. surprise. cowardice. your feet feel rooted to the ground where you came to a stop and you are the one with the power to change that, to move forward or turn back, but you don't. have you ever been good at making the right moves at the right times?

once. but what did it amount to? it was only an outlier.

there is little else to say.

your attention is fixed on the spot where those spectres appeared, and disappeared, and you do not want to think about what you have seen but now you have seen it and you cannot forget. you tell yourself you are overreacting. the three images presented to you were not

were they not bad? were they neutral? were they good? they were not good. the feeling twisting in your stomach tells you they were not good. not the way that it ended. but that begs the question: what were they? who were they, when were they, what were they trying to tell you and why were they shown to you, a sporadic wanderer in these woods?

you know who.

the bubbling creeps up on you again, this time up your arms and over your shoulders, the way you think something sinister would feel but without the pain you know comes with it, and you twist out of your mind's grip. you run, no longer rooted to the ground, barely able to focus on that guiding force, holding onto it only enough to get you out safely until that overwhelming sensation fizzles out, leaving you in your own skin again.

you stand at the tree line, facing the stretch of land between you and your home. you're bent, your hands are on your knees as you stare out at the horizon, mapping the skyline of the buildings you know so well, this vantage point providing new silhouettes. you breathe. you wait.

home is safe, warm and comforting and familiar. a chord strikes.

you never speak of it.

**Author's Note:**

> i talk simultaneously too much and not nearly enough about my kids @commandersurana on twitter.


End file.
